Wednesday, 31 October 2018

You can no longer ignore the direction the planet is taking. Everything has gone technical, digital, and virtual if you know what I mean. Wherever you look, there is some sort of tech advancement that runs the place and ensures everything is in order. Even in our homes, it is also now filled with various tech contrivances that promise to enhance efficiency and make our lives easier and more comfortable.

This has its limitations, though, given that modern tech gadgets cost a lot and not everyone can afford them. But still, the demand continues to grow as other businesses come up with cheaper variants that the masses can afford using the existing technology that is taking the world by storm right now. While some argue that the existence of smartphones has rendered other technologies obsolete, it actually is the exact opposite.

Smartphones will continue to be a staple many can’t live without and demand for parts and other similar technologies are just as popular too. It is a domino effect that isn’t entirely bad for the automation market where other tech gadgets like robots will also benefit from as the public becomes increasingly dependent on these pieces of machinery in doing just about every task they have in their day-to-day. Can you remember the last time you didn’t use any piece of technology and survived a day without it? It’s likely a long time ago, right? For the past years, smartphones have become increasingly popular and the rise of the web and of social media made people even more interested in owning a smart device because it is our ticket to the world.

The smartphone hasn’t killed machinery makers after all. Apple Inc. has yet to release a new version of its iPhone, but the trough in demand looks to be ending anyway. The business cycle lives.

Exhibit one: Fanuc. The Japanese automation giant gave a rosier outlook than three months ago, raising its estimates for full-year operating and net income by more than 5 percent. Costs are expected to be down 2 percent. The company, which is typically conservative in its forecasts, predicted a more than 15 percent gain in net income for the first half through September.

That’s a turnaround from a severely downbeat outlook in April. Then, Fanuc said operating profit would fall 34 percent for the year versus consensus estimates of 9 percent growth. Investors took it to mean the smartphone boom was over. Fanuc’s stock plunged as much as 14 percent the next day.

Despite if any problems with the economy or trade concerns, it is impossible to picture out the world without robots and smartphones in it anymore. Not only does it satiate our desire to enjoy the many wonderful things the world has to offer, it is also a practical choice since a lot of opportunities can be found on the web. People have now taken their business online because that is where everybody is. Can you imagine all the machines powering countless servers that make the World Wide Web go round? Or the innumerable devices that people personally own or use in their schools and offices? These technologies are undoubtedly our present and future and there is no changing that anymore.

Investors have been dumping shares of Japan’s industrial automation leaders, fearing a sustained slump. The reality is that a more nuanced picture is emerging, as fiscal first-quarter earnings may show starting this week: Demand for smartphones, robots, construction machinery and farm equipment isn’t in sync, causing customers’ capital-expenditure cycles to diverge.

Key to the current pall is an imminent retreat in smartphone demand, a key driver of sales for machinery makers. Shares of Fanuc Corp., the biggest supplier to the companies that make and assemble handsets, have dropped almost 40 percent from their January peak. Japan’s orders from the precision equipment industry in China, the category that includes smartphone makers, plummeted by more than 60 percent in May.

Suppliers to Apple Inc. buy Fanuc’s machines to produce iPhone casings. So when the Japanese company provided depressing guidance last quarter, the stock tumbled along with those of peers. Fanuc reports Wednesday.

While it is expected that some industries go up and down because of trade concerns and demand going down, the thing is that it will likely recover and keep up with the changes because technology is no longer just a luxury but a necessity in our daily lives. There may be slumps now and then but they do not usually last and recovers after a few months or so. Of course, unlike other commodities, people do not change cellphones after a few months of use although there are people who are like that because they can afford it. The majority do not necessarily follow smartphone trends and make use of their devices for several years before actually changing to a newer model.

Wednesday, 24 October 2018

Technology is all around us today that we can only wonder just how far we can take it further in the coming years. A few years back, smartphones were still a luxury and only the elite can afford it but today, the masses have their own smartphones that allow them to access the web whenever and wherever. This has been made possible when cheaper and more mass-produced handsets are marketed and sold to reach a wider demographic. Hence, even ordinary individuals own a smart gadget that offers more or less the same features as popular brands like Apple and Samsung but only at a fraction of the price.

The technology that we know today continues to move forward and traverse uncharted territories. Let’s take artificial intelligence for example. We are already quite familiar with the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) per se even if the details are still a little vague to most people. It is even available in some technologies we are using. Think of Alexa and Siri and the likes. However, AI may eventually go mainstream with news about Google adding their AI chips to computers within the year. Imagine how many people can now use artificial intelligence technology from the comforts of their own homes, schools, and offices.

Google, one of the top companies in the hot area of artificial intelligence, will begin letting customers directly use its custom processors for the technology starting in October.

Google's TPUs, or tensor processing units, accelerate AI tasks like understanding voice commands or recognizing objects in photos. Today, Google will let you pay to do that kind of work on its cloud-computing infrastructure. But through a program called Edge TPU announced Wednesday, Google will let programmers install the TPUs in their own machines.

"There are also many benefits to be gained from intelligent, real-time decision-making at the point where these devices connect to the network," without having to wait for a trip over the network to Google's machines, Injong Rhee, vice president of Google Cloud's internet of things work, said in a blog post. "Your sensors become more than data collectors -- they make local, real-time, intelligent decisions."

Machine or deep learning is still in its infancy and there are still a lot of questions left unanswered but making a part of the technology readily available to the public may hasten progress and even give answers to some of the questions raised in the past regarding this highly advanced technology. Soon enough, we may even come across announcements informing us that AI will hit the smartphone industry too full-blown this time. That will likely happen sooner rather than later at the rate these advancements are progressing and being developed right now. Competition is also instrumental here since companies want to beat each other so they double their efforts.

“We see there are emerging needs for edge computing, which is essentially running data analytics and intelligence services in locations where data is collected or what we call at the edge,” he said. “This is important as sometimes moving all data to the cloud from sensors can be very expensive.”

The setup is also underpinned by the Cloud IoT Edge software stack. This can run on Android Things or Linux-based devices and equips them with the capabilities they need to carry out machine learning-related data processing tasks.

Rhee said the setup has already been adopted by the IT services arm of electronics giant LG, which is using it to cut the amount of manpower needed in its product testing procedures and predict it could help the organisation save the organisation around $1m a year per product line.

Wednesday, 17 October 2018

Computers are a delight to many. They allow us to do a lot of things at the same time without even leaving our seats. Can you imagine living life without them? It has been decades since computers were still a rarity. Back then, things were still done manually and it had its pros and cons. Things were probably simpler. You don’t need to learn a lot of things at once but it took more time and effort in finishing up tasks. But with the advent of modern computing, things that will take ages to do and finish can now be done in a snap and the best thing about all these technological advancements is that we can now connect to the world at large with just a click of a button.

Things can be done in real time and it has opened up opportunities that never existed back then. You can even work from the comfort of your own homes and still earn more than the average worker out there. As wonderful as it may seem, technology has a major drawback and it has bane of our existence for the longest time too. Hardwares don’t last forever. They work smoothly and efficiently when the device is still new but wear and tear can result in problems like a failing hard drive that can cost you so much money and a lot of headaches too.

You know the feeling: Your once-snappy Windows laptop now takes ages to do simple things such as opening folders and saving files, leaving you wondering what’s going on.

What can you do?

There are many reasons a laptop may suddenly slow down, including lack of memory and the presence of computer viruses, or malware. So there’s no single answer to that question.

“If the memory or storage space is taxed, it can result in a slowdown in performance,” says Antonette Asedillo, who oversees computer testing for Consumer Reports. There’s also a new type of malware that hijacks your computer to generate cryptocurrency without your knowledge or consent.

Not only are failing hard drives a big pain but it can also affect your work especially when you have a regular work schedule to follow or deadlines to meet. You won’t be able to fully use your device if its hard drive is already failing. It takes a long time for programs to open and you may experience files disappearing all of a sudden. It can stress you out especially if you haven’t backed up your data yet. Add to that the pressure of you needing to submit it but it suddenly disappears on you. The only silver lining here is that your hard drive does not go bad all of a sudden. There are warning signs to be wary of, so better familiarize yourself as to what they are to help you act on the problem before your hard drive completely falters.

Strange Sounds

When you hear strange noises coming from your hard drive, it may be too late already. A repetitive sound also known as the click of death is caused by the head as it is trying to write data and recovers from errors in doing so. Grinding or screeching noises indicate that parts of the hardware, for example the bearings or spindle motor, are failing.

S.M.A.R.T. Data

There are tools that aim to predict hard drive failure by reading the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) data that is recorded by the operating system. Unfortunately, like most other methods listed above, S.M.A.R.T. is notoriously unreliable in predicting hard drive failure and the catastrophe will often happen before the warning of S.M.A.R.T. kicks in. If you have a working hard drive, however, and would like to have a look at its S.M.A.R.T. data, check out our article on tools to predict and prevent hard drive failure.

Knowing that your hard drive is quite fragile will teach you to become more careful in handling it and ensuring it is taken cared of and not abused all the time. These tech parts have a specific shelf life but they can lengthen or shorten depending on how it is used. If you want to make the most of your device and the money you paid for it, learn what the common failing hard drive problems are such as https://www.harddriverecovery.org/errors/disk_read_error.html and https://www.harddriverecovery.org/repair-hard-drive.html, so you can act on them as soon as you notice it happening to your device. Your computer can only take so much, so help it do its job so your life is still as comfortable and efficient with its help. It is inevitable for it to break over time but with proper use, some computers can last far longer than that of average users.

The following blog article Failing Hard Drive was initially published on www.harddriverecovery.org